Lindelof Part 2: Cowboys & Aliens.

Following the conclusion of his hit television series Lost in 2010, Damon Lindelof made the jump to the big screen in 2011 with Jon Favreau’s Cowboys & Aliens. The script, which was Lindelof’s first, was co-written with his Star Trek collaborators Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. The film stars Daniel Craig as a wanted man in the old west who wakes up with an unusual piece of technology on his wrist, and no memory of who he is. Craig is forced to team up with a rancher, played by Harrison Ford, in order to fight an alien menace that has been abducting the town’s citizens.

This week, Mike and Max are joined by John Mills of Words with Nerds to talk about Lindelof’s debut screenplay, and how it relates to his career on the whole. We discuss how Lindelof’s collaborations compare to his solo work, what makes Harrison Ford’s movies so special, why the film did not live up to expectations, who is to blame for the movie’s failure, where Lindelof’s touch is visible in the film, how Lindelof’s movie work differs from his television work, and whether or not it’s reasonable to be disappointed by a movie called Cowboys & Aliens.

Lindelof Part 1: Trek.

In 2007, J.J. Abrams was handed the keys to the Star Trek franchise. He quickly assembled a “Supreme Court” of collaborators which included writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, executive producer Bryan Burk, and producer Damon Lindelof.

With Lindelof’s background as a television writer, most notably the creator of Lost, it was clear that his role on Star Trek would be a creative one. With Lost now behind him, Lindelof has joined Kurtzman and Orci as the franchise’s newest writer for Star Trek Into Darkness.

This week, Max and Mike begin a new series on Lindelof’s career as a movie writer. In Part 1, we are joined by Robert Reyes to look at Lindelof’s work in Trek. We discuss Lindelof’s time on Lost, Abrams’s reasons behind hiring Lindelof as a producer on Star Trek, whether or not the 2009 film lives up to the standards of the franchise, why the Lost team was chosen to reboot Trek, what our expectations are for Into Darkness, and of course, whether or not the new film’s villain is Khan.

Wilkerson Part 2: Houdini & Lovecraft, The Ghost Writer.

This week, Mike and Max are joined once again by Star Trek writer Ron Wilkerson to discuss his new novel, Houdini & Lovecraft, The Ghost Writer. In the book, the great illusionist Harry Houdini teams with the struggling writer H.P. Lovecraft to investigate a supposedly haunted house.

In this episode, Ron talks about the origins of the novel, creating a fictional dynamic between two real-life characters, the struggle of building interest in the book among Star Trek fans, working in the sci-fi horror genre, the inspiration of Lovecraft’s work on his own, his fascination with Houdini, the differences between writing for screenplays and novels, the new book he’s working on called Crossover, and the new television show he’s working on called Dreamland.

Wilkerson Part 1: Trek.

This week, Max and Mike are joined by Star Trek writer Ron Wilkerson in the first of two very special episodes.

Ron has written seven hours of Star Trek, including “Imaginary Friend,” “Schisms,” “Lessons,” and “Lower Decks” for The Next Generation, and “Learning Curve,” “Fair Trade,” and “Ashes to Ashes” for Voyager. He has also written a new novel entitled Houdini & Lovecraft, The Ghost Writer, which is available on Amazon.com.

In this episode, Ron tells us about his work on Star Trek, including the origins of “Lessons,” building stories around pre-existing characters and elements, collaborating with other writers, having his scripts re-written by others and re-writing other people’s scripts himself, tackling the issue of Maquis integration, what his relationship was with Star Trek growing up, and what he thinks about the current incarnation of the franchise. We also discuss how it is perfectly reasonable to get the cheese to sickbay.

Meyer Part 8: Recap.

While Nicholas Meyer may be best known for his career in film, he is also a rather prolific author. Over the past seven weeks, Mike and Max have covered all six of Meyer’s novels, and this week we recap his writing career on the whole. We touch on each of his novels, including Target Practice, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The West End Horror, Black Orchid, Confessions of a Homing Pigeon, and The Canary Trainer, and try to draw some conclusions on his career on the whole.